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In this episode of Tales of the Unexpected, we learn that DayZ creator and lead Dean Hall plans to leave Bohemia by the end of 2014, in order to set up a new studio in New Zealand. The early access version of the multiplayer survival sim passed 1.5 million players this weekend and I don’t think it’s dropped out of the top three sellers on Steam since release, but Hall told Eurogamer that his continued presence would become a hindrance to the project:

…maybe I’ve got the gift of the gab, so I can talk, I can explain something, I can talk people up to the ledge and get them to jump off it. That’s what I did with DayZ; I’ve done it twice now – two new code teams have separately done it. But eventually, that’s the bad person to have. Eventually, you don’t want the guy telling you to go over the top and get through. So at some point I’ll be a disaster for the project, at least in a leadership role.

Bohemia have acknowledged the statement but declined to add comment. More details below.

The reasoning is sensible, which is a relief. Hall hasn’t watched one too many Youtube videos of bandits committing atrocities and decided to pull the plug on the monster he created. Mostly, it seems, he wants to go home, to New Zealand, as he’d planned to all along. He still wants to make multiplayer games (with three ideas already ‘written’ and two more percolating) but he wants to do it on his own terms and that doesn’t necessarily mean in a leadership role. He recognises his flaws.

…it’s kind of like cooking in someone else’s kitchen: I don’t want to be constantly telling Bohemia that this is how I do it and this is the way we do it.

The thing is, if I’m involved in the project, I’ll be fighting anybody on the project to make sure it’s good, so for the rest of the year, I’m there. And I don’t just sit around; it doesn’t matter if I’m the cleaner or the leader or whatever, I will be making sure – I will be in Marek’s office yelling at him. I’m notorious for it.

Talking about his plans now is better for everyone, he says, including the DayZ community, Bohemia and himself. He wants to start seeding the new studio now, to start the process of building someting in New Zealand and to let publishers know that he’s going to be a free agent in the near future. As for Bohemia, he doesn’t want to leave them in the lurch.

I have to be on the project as long as it’s important to. Whether that role is as the leader, whether that role is in a more creative sense…But at a certain point there will be diminishing returns.

This way, he says, is fairer than turning around and saying ‘see ya’ one day, which could create panic. Once the handover is complete, Hall will be continuing to chase the perfect multiplayer experience.

I feel like DayZ is a fundamentally flawed concept and I’ve always recognised that. It’s not the perfect game; it’s not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it.

DayZ isn’t going anywhere. It’s already become a much larger project than anyone could have predicted and Hall isn’t leaving on a whim. While the overall direction is unlikely to change, it’ll be interesting to see if the devil and the details are reconfigured as time goes on. As for Hall – I’m eager to see what he cooks up next.

I never tried Dayz, but sometimes “Beta” is just a word developers slap next to their game’s name to promise future features that they may or may not have even decided yet.
“Beta” doesn’t automatically mean the finished product will be ten times better.

Yeah its not like the game is going to suddenly play different when it comes out of beta. Its going to be the same game it is now except a little less buggy and maybe a few new features. I always find it funny when people act like a game in beta is going to be completely different once released. The truth is 99.999% of the time not much changes from beta to release and it seems a lot of people foolishly think differently. I mean how many times do you see the word “potential thrown around for these types of games. Yeah well every game has potential but only a small fraction of them only ever live up to that potential.

A game in beta won’t be completely different from the final product as a game enters beta state when all of its systems are in place.
A game in alpha, however (DayZ is in alpha and they won’t be reaching beta too soon), that’s a different story.

Alpha a different story? Maybe when it comes to features, but so what?

These terms are blurred anyway, and they surely mean a lot less that what they meant back in the days, where only a room was developed and the door didn’t even work, alpha testers were already there.

Anything that starts grabbing customers early should be only called for what it is, early access, and despite what optimistic people want to think you’re already getting something decently polished. It’s totally fair to start speculating and, while i don’t condone “OMG DIS GHEIM IS SH1T” people who are quick to jump on the hate bandwagon, i can surely understand those who put some thought into their concerns.

You losers – and that IS what you are acting like – can argue about software development phases all you want, but the fact stands that DayZ standalone is OVER A YEAR FROM 1.0.

So you’re “concerns” about the game are a weak attempt at trolling, at the absolute best. More likely, you want the game to fail for whatever reasons, likely selfish ones, and have rationalized your way into idiocy.

Don’t worry, it’s a common and human thing to do, but another common and human thing (pride) will keep you from acknowledging it and learning from it.

you’re talking so much bs mate… Look at Rust I’ve played this game since it was in Browser Edition. Now it’s on Steam it’s still Alpha but I can barely recognize the game. Games in beta and alpha are changing when oficially released. Some more, some a bit less but for instance what DayZ Standalone is now is everything else but a finished game. It’s a game in Alpha not in Beta even. Dean Hall is the original creator of the Mod and the game but he’s not DayZ itself. The game and the community can do without him. Still a pity tho… but who knows he might end up creating another incredible title :P

Well what the hell do you think??!
Every one who thinks beta will never be finished FU*ck Of! Look at how Minecraft turned out!
Developers release their game before they have fixed all bugs.
The game can only be called finished when the game is finished!
Beta stands for unfinished, work in progress!
uhhhhh..
srsly? Don’t .

It isn’t beta. It’s funny how many people are commenting on this game, and don’t even know what phase of development it is in.

This is how fundamentalism exists, fyi. Yeah, this is just gaming, but the pattern of injecting stupid-ass, ignorant as fuck opinions into things you know nothing about, and that don’t affect you in any meaningful way, is exactly the same.

Standalone is a followup, you can cry alpha all you want, point is Dayz was nothing more than a cool glimpse into sandboxy survival, a happy accident with huge merit, as it proved a lot of people are ready to commit to this type of game. But the way standalone is going? Could people stop pretending that we don’t already have a solid grasp on what the game is, and beyond reasoning in terms of features like the game industry taught us to, can we discuss concepts? The cool thing about Dayz wasn’t the zombies, or pve survival, that was garbage, a mere backdrop for player interactions, the unexpected, the spontaneous. However, Dayz lacked persistence, a way to build upon player interactions in an organic way, much like a sandbox mmo, something Rust did brilliantly with base building. This route is the truly promising one, this is expanding on a concept, this would justify patience and caution in judging the progression of development.
But that’s not what’s happening with Dayz Standalone, all we have seen so far is survival stuff and new types of superficial interactions, right now we KNOW it cannot expand on the initial concept of DayZ beyond polishing it and adding variety and quirks, There will not be any persistence beyond a player’s inventory, the world will remain static, there will not be any complex interactions.
It is fine in a way, I’d give it a try, but Dayz is no longer spearheading the trend it started, it has nowhere else to go.

Day Z is limited by it’s engine more than anything and Dean has recoded huge chunks of it to fix what problems he could. If BIS have a flaw it’s their lack of will to radically improve their engine, 64bit executable, improved multithreading, decent physics implementation, more and smoother animations, fixes to clipping, mid-range texture quality increase, A.I. fixes, the list of community requested that’d improve peoples experience of DayZ and ARMA3 are endless but they’re either ignored or dismissed leaving people with poor performance and flawed gameplay.

If I had to guess at a reason for Rocket leaving it’d be lack of ambition.

Either this or he simply always knew that nothing else could be done about it, which means leaving before the final shitstorm and being barely able to claim “It wasn’t my fault!” ( to the uninformed )is the only thing that’d save him.

Guess that’s why they’re going with a middle-ware physics engine, quite soon supposedly, and have been working non-stop on server and client optimizations for about a month, while still eking out the occasional new gun or other goodie

Dear Universal Quitter, could you please make your comments less negative?

This site is a place of learning and sharing. I value your information on the good that the Day Z devs are doing. But your tone toward the other commenters is unwarranted.

All anyone wants here is good games and good information. If you would be do kind as to share your opinion in a manner that does not belittle the other posters (wrong or not) I would be very appreciative.

I have always had the impression that Rocket is truly visionary when it comes to online gaming. I remember watching the stream of DayZ he did with TotalBiscuit quite some time ago, and his excitement and proudness of the mod spoke volumes of his enthusiasm for new multiplayer experiences.

DayZ needs an end-game factor. You aspire towards getting better gear and finding supplies, but once you achieve that it becomes a matter of being able to feed yourself self-made goals faster than you can get bored.

Having factions and a the map divided into territories that said factions can capture and claim would be nice IMO, though it might not be in line with what others want.

I just hope Mr. Hall leaves the game in a fuller state once it’s time to head home.

I found the variety of weapons, equipment and vehicles in the original mod helped with this. In the mod, building a chopper was always the ultimate goal (for my group of friends at least). It kept us playing because we were aiming for something.

The current beta doesn’t have much in the way of difficult achievements or even loot to collect, so you reach a peak where you have ‘the best stuff in the game’ quite quickly. Which is understandable for a beta. I think all they need to do is keep adding new weapons, new items, vehicles, news ways for the player to interact within the world and it will increase it’s lifespan.

Such a game should simply run on a purpose built engine, starting from zero, then we might finally talk about way more ambitious features wrapped in a sort of polished package.

Imagine full fledged farming and hunting: i’ll buy a DayZ-like once i can be 100% sure that i can live completely alone in a forgotten place with some water and some woods, for days and days, in a map so large that human encounters are scarce, but with means to prepare against them and to ask for cooperation from relative safety.

That’d be my endgame, crafting my bows and arrows, maybe a polearm, looting some dead guy or trading with some wanderer, playing scavenger after hearing distant conflicts, and sometimes risking my life for some medicines if the above methods fail at that.

Oh! Each evening i’d climb my little mountain to watch the sunset painting the woods orange, gleefully trying to imagine how much blood is being pointlessly spilled in that huge city in the very distant horizon.

DayZ needs an end-game factor. You aspire towards getting better gear and finding supplies, but once you achieve that it becomes a matter of being able to feed yourself self-made goals faster than you can get bored.

This is what happens in almost every pure “sandbox” game. See for example Dwarf Fortress or the recently released (and very excellent) Banished.

I can see why he is leaving now. This Standalone is not going anywhere because of the severe engine limitations. For him it is the right move because in the end he can say he was not involved in how it turned out. This game has reached it’s peak and there is nothing that can save it.

It’s basically washing his hand when he noticed that suddenly his game run into a dead end. Cause IMHO a development of standalone is a dead-end for Day Z and Hall just wants to come out of it with great PR for himself before truth comes out to the hive-mind of an industry, hopefully getting some very well-paid job in one of the other game-dev companies.

I honestly doubt Hall can develop any game into great finish product that would meet hype he can build around it.

I honestly doubt we will hear anything from Dean Hall from now on. I think this guy is a one trick pony because in all these years DayZ has not evolved from the original mod at all plus there are better mods out there than the stand alone ever will be.

I think we will hear more from Dean Hall until Journalists catch on to the fact he is a one trick pony. I mean it took a million articles before they realized “scrolls” was just an average game and not the next minecraft.

A one tricky pony is someone who can do one thing and time shows they can’t do anything else. DayZ is the first game that got him any recognition. It will only be possible to tell what kind of game creator he is in approximately 10 years’ time.

I barely play multiplayer games at all but I’ve already sunk eighty hours into DayZ standalone. If it’s a flawed concept, it’s still an incredibly unique and engaging one. The lack of rigid systems or menu’s is so refreshing. I love the big sandbox feel of it and I love encountering other players. Even in its current rough state it’s one of the most compelling multiplayer game’s I’ve played.

I’m glad Dean will be hanging around for a while yet, to see the game on its way as I feel his guidance has long been DayZ’s strength. Still I’m suddenly very excited, however distant the prospect, of what he’ll do next.

Which is unfortunate. I’m of the mind that the reason there’s been very little progress in the game so far is because of Hall’s indecision and lack of focus. Hopefully the team will be able to pull together to find a more competent lead when 2015 rolls around.

i know eye candy isn’t everything, but this game has looked like crap (visually) since day one. understandable if it was some 2 person indie team, but from what I gather, there’s more than a handful of hands in this cookie jar.

also this type of game is just begging for IAP to be included sooner or later…. mark my words, you’ll get a dozen self-righteous justifications for it from the devs, but it will turn into another pos before it dies.

He’s not necessarily going to leave at the end of 2014 (though it seems likely). Some quotes from him from the dayz reddit:

“To be fair… the most important element of the story is that I am continuing to work on DayZ for the rest of the year, and more if required.

While I have outlined this intention before (link to reddit.com), it’s better that everyone knows my intention now, all the “drama” and panic comments… and then in a week nobody will give a crap and we’re back to normal.”

and

“This year I’m saying it a bit stronger, a little louder. When the time comes for me to be able to go home, I intend to do so. I hope the project can be at that point at the end of the year.”

Well what the hell do you think??!
Every one who thinks beta will never be finished FU*ck Of! Look at how Minecraft turned out!
Developers release their game before they have fixed all bugs.
The game can only be called finished when the game is finished!
Beta stands for unfinished, work in progress!
uhhhhh..
srsly? Don’t .

Brilliant game but after a good few days/night playing Dayz and being a dev myself I I severely doubt it’s going to be able to overcome having such a shitty ancient engine even with all the changes they are making. Movement still feels janky and horrible don’t even ask about melee weapons / hit detection.

I really think they took the quick and easy easy route by making the mod using Arma 2 instead of the smoother Arma 3 engine. Dayz is a great concept but it’s not going to find it’s zenith using tech designed for something completely different.

I think i’ll return to the game in 6 months maybe. Right now there isn’t much to do apart from gear up and go shoot people. Obviously it’s still very early but as an Eve player I felt really disappointed that there’s basically no emergent play and no point doing anything other than immediately killing anyone you come across. Because all the players are totally anonymous all the time there’s no way to identify anyone and be able to see their intentions so everyone naturally plays like dochebags. 95% of people will immediately kill anyone they see on sight which kind of turns it into the slowest laggiest and worst shooter you’ve ever played.

The difference between Eve and Dayz is that in Eve you have a name and identity so that if you steal / stab friends in the back it will stick with you. This is actually interesting and allows people to really play certain roles / characters. Since everyone in Dayz is anonymous there’s no way to tell if anyone is trustworthy or not so the logical position is to kill or betray anyone you meet, really limiting things.

Lot of people saying the Arma II Engine is “ancient” or “shitty” and I couldn’t disagree more. At least within the context of Arma II vs Arma III.
The Arma(x) engine is a complicated thing to judge as there is scripting, settings, and animation abilities to take into consideration. As someone who has been modding the engine since Operation Flashpoint I can tell you that with skill you can make some amazing and great running things in the game, and not much has changed with it over the years.

One thing to keep in mind is if the grass and stuff is turned down the ground textures look just as crap in any version of Arma. So in order to get the terrible scripting from DayZ to work in Arma III without slowing to a crawl they would probably have to set things to a level that would look the same as Arma II.

I’d even go so far as to argue the look of Arma II is better on a lot of islands. Arma III clouds look fake and the colors are over-saturated. Take a look at the following Arma II screenshot and tell me it’s outdated (I think it looks better than 3):link to steamcommunity.com

Just because you add another number to something does not make it better.

I expected it from Katoku et al but I’m disappointed in RPS concerning the blatant click-baiting in the headline.

Dean is not leaving DayZ nor Bohemia, he is staying until he is no longer needed as project lead. He then plans to return to his homeland and family to chase dreams but will retain influence over the game in a reduced capacity.

That’s not really the scare mongering scoop the gaming press are peddling with all these sensational headlines though…

“I feel like DayZ is a fundamentally flawed concept and I’ve always recognised that. It’s not the perfect game; it’s not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it.”

Always recognized that? Phew. Good thing he didn’t admit this before milking the standalone release for a few months.

DayZ Standalone is perfect with all its flawless just like the world an its human beigns. Every other single game banalizes the odds of a war, of killing, dying, starving, shooting, getting shot, the complexity of relationships in the society. Most of the people want everything right now, fast, easy, tricky and thats not the way it is. DayZ Standalone is much, from far away much better than the mod to arma. And what makes it so special? Its singularity, that some people (a few I would say – cos’ DayZ caught players that don’t like FPS games – and thats a huge bunch of players, much more than currently ones) unfortunatly didn’t notice yet.

If the those weak marketing people changes the target of the project out from its aim, they’re gonna mess up so bad. And those actually working in such positions, usualy follow restrict, coward and dumb rules scared about not over earning much more money and they forgot the main point? What makes the game get so many players. This is the first time in my whole life since 1977 when I start gaming that I’m not ashamed to tell my friends about a game. Cos’ every single other FPS has PvP, infinite amunition, infinite lives, health, fuel, vehicles to keep the hunger for killing. And then what? To satisfies who? The world anger? Look around you, not just at yourself, see how the world is, how the community is near you. Many people doesn’t know how to live together anymore. This game has a potencial that no other has cos’ of this. And if this plastic-marketeers don’t know how to do it and don’t have guts for it without doing what some guys that don’t even know whats better for themselves then I say call someone else, anyone, a real specialist, even me – yeah, cos’ I know what I’m talking about. This game can get help from even carity institutions, from companies that no other FPS could take if it continious like that. Cos’ as far as I can see, PvP, killing people just for fun, even in-game, specially in this one isn’t your best choice and who ever do that has its own brain in artificial-inteligence mode – cos’ there are no winners, in a war there are never winners, and never will be. All sides looses, just like that. And in a apocalyptical situation the best choice is to group up, help, aid, cos’ I’m sadly have to warn you, if you’re alone you will die anywhere. And the whole world society and any other society will only have a heathy relationship whenever stabilish good communication with respect for all. Now, I understant those who want dynamic, vehicles, lots of weapons, what I gotta a say for those is, there’s already Battlefield and Call of Duty. Those games are cool, I play them. Don’t mess up with DayZ, please. And for the creator and developer. Stick to it, dude! Sup? What about that “I’m gonna do what I want” speech, what lead you into this success. There are dumb marketing guys everywhere, is not the tool that’s bad, its just the people. I work with that too and I don’t do it for cigarrettes companies neither to a bunch of legalized bandits that ain’t got no responsabilities at all. For those who don’t like, good, go for COD, BF3 BF4, there’s a bunch there for you to choose. You wanna always win the game, I know. Well, let me tell you something. You can’t win always. And some time it isnt a matter of winning or beign the best. The game can have its implementation as planned, with restrictions. Still making the person feel the pain of a death dont let him spawn again so fast so he can at least think twice before doing a bullshit. And for the fans, they’re not gonna close down, I’m pretty sure about that. Just if they were too stupid. I just hope they don’t turn it into a COD or BF, cos’ then they’re gonna loose many players and possible players that you can’t even imagine. There’s much more than graphics, engines and movements, there’s a philosophycal meaning beyond that, Id say an anthropologial and sociological contest. It’s indeed the most important game ever made, beleive me. The technical thing, implementations can be done and will be done, thats the easiest part. Now, the whole concept, the idea, the dificulties the diferent challenges. From wich you can’t solve just buy shooting or killing someone, thats the point. You gotta use your brain. And like I said before, kill or shoot someone is never the best option, but how to trust, how to make a friendship, that needs time, that needs evolution. In this game if you shoot anyone you can be loosing a potencial friend and if you help someone and the guy you helped shoots you he lost a friend for sure. Was the guy that tried to help stupid? No, I say. Its a game, he didn’t loose, just had that character killed, the other guy that killed him was the stupid one and will not survive. Cos’ somewhere, somehow something is gonna happen, he’s gonna break a leg, he’s gonna get killed for trying to kill someone, he wont last. Its okay, its his way. But, by my way I can tell. I have never made so many good friends on a FPS game like on DayZ. And if somehow they mess everything up, I’ll make just like Lamborghini did, I swear.

It’s not even in Beta yet, and won’t be until late 2014 or early 2015. The game is currently in Alpha, which means that it is still in the early stages of adding initial content. There is absolutely no way for anyone to judge whether the game will succeed or not based on what currently exists in its basic structure.

Saying that DayZ Standalone can never work or is some kind of lost cause is like looking at construction workers pouring a concrete slab, and saying, “See? I told you they could never build a house there…”

When people talk about the state of the game, you should try to understand that the term, “game,” in this sense is a misapplication of the word. There is no game at the moment…there is simply a foundational game world that is finished enough to let potential players run around in if they care to do so.

The game itself is still in the early stages of being built…that’s what an Alpha is.

Please stop freaking out or whatever it is you people are doing here, because it doesn’t make sense for anyone to have this ridiculous attitude.

Im surprised at the extent of the conversation on this topic. However, I must say that DayZ is a great concept. But that is all it is. It will remain a concept until a better platform is found or built. The Arma platform, while being a great platform for Arma, is not the ideal system for DayZ. Much like the “concept” cars we see at auto shows, they showcase the basic idea of a direction and what might be possible. Often the finished project is much different. The current alpha of the DayZ standalone is no different than the concept cars that we see.

I can understand why BI is not eager to completely overhaul their engine that has served Arma (and the mod community) very well just to make it more friendly for the DayZ concept. I think Hall leaving BI is a testament to just how devoted he is to creating a new, unique, and cutting edge multiplayer experience. He has gone as far as he can with the Arma platform. I’ve also noticed that a lot of people in the comments section have incorrectly read into the context of Hall’s comments and have somehow drawn the conclusion that Hall himself thinks that he is a poor leader…then saying that his idea to have his own studio and new projects is contradictory to his own statements on leadership. read it again and dont read any farther into it than what he says. I didnt draw the conclusion that he is a poor leader at all. What I read was that he cant go any farther with BI in his idea of an immersive multiplayer. So he is going to try to do it his own way. Bravo. Many would just hag around their old jobs if just for the security of a their stable paycheck rather than start a new venture.

I agree that the DayZ standalone (alpha) needs a lot. And it needs more than the Arma platform could ever provide. I have just started playing the Arma series so I am not a good critic of the series but I do understand that DayZ is not a tactical simulator. And I am surprised that DayZ was able to make it this far in the Arma skin. I also believe a true testament to Hall’s leadership ability has been the holding off of the beta release. realistically, they couldve polished up the DayZ alpha, dropped in some new eye-candy, and released it as a “beta” and made another 10 or 20 million bhucks. Instead, they waited. Instead they worked on it. And instead of ripping a ton of people off they kept their integrity and continued along with trying to improve it.

Compare that to DICE pushing out Battlefield 4 when it was clearly unfinished. And in doing so still had the nerve to charge everyone $60 for the game and then another $50 for a “premium” membership. All for a broken (or unfinished) product that they didnt have the nerve to call “alpha” or “beta”. Who do you respect more? Your answer is the one who has the true qualities of a leader.

So much jealousy, so much frothing, so much Beta? [alpha artards.]
According to the comments he’s really bad at his job and can’t create anything worth a damn…

…The same guy, who’s the creator of Dayz mod for Arma2 right?
The mod that has basically in the last year or so spurred an entire genre of clones? – and this very game.

The mod that is (despite the engine) fun, playable and meets the goals the game sets out to (and includes a lot of the things people are saying are impossible, with the current engine — base building, vehicles, etc…)

Seriously you people need to do at least a little research / take a little medication before you start frothing & mashing your keyboards …